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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138890">Journey Advanced</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera'>devera</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Assassin's Creed - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:27:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,580</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28138890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing. Herodotus knows this better than anyway, and yet still he learns.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Journey Advanced</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/athersgeo/gifts">athersgeo</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p>To record the works of men one must be at all times logical, dispassionate, and follow a thought to its conclusion no matter if that ending is pleasant or the opposite of popular thought. This is how one attempts to arrive at truth. To deny possibilities contradictory to one’s beliefs is merely folly, and I would prefer to discover, to understand, than to live in a dream world. I have lived by this small, personal creed all my life. I shall no doubt die by it.</p><p>Therefore, let me present to you an argument – if the Gods do exist then it must follow that their offspring exist and are indeed capable of the great deeds and labours that we know. And if so, then does it not also follow that those items – the armour of Achilles, the sword of Peleus, the Aegis, and so on – reported to be in their possession are not equally real?<sup> 1</sup></p><p>
  <em>1. Ah I have spent too much time in the company of Socrates, I think. I am beginning to argue like him.</em>
</p><p>II.</p><p>This is rhetorical question – I can verify with personal experience that they do exist and are real and that they endow their already accomplished bearers with even yet more astonishing abilities.</p><p>However, it also follows that if the common man is capable of good and evil both then so are the offspring of the gods. It is my theory (which shall never be included in my writings) that the monsters of legend slain by our heroes were in fact these offspring, their blood sullied perhaps beyond their ability to receive those gifts of the Gods, but whose greed or desperation or hatred or despair drove them to attempt to possess such great and terrible artefacts that they could not control. And, should one not look upon such souls as one looks upon all men in all lands? Those who may redeem themselves should be supported in doing so, for no man is without hope, without salvation.<sup>2</sup></p><p>
  <em>2. And in this case, Kassandra of Kephelonia would be most displeased were I to do anything other than this.</em>
</p><p>III.</p><p>I travel to Thuriai in Magna Graecia, in the lands of Lucania, on command of Perikles. A Panhellenic colony as Perikles suggested is a fine aim, but I go with ulterior motives, for it is my intention to there witness for myself if the Arrow of Heracles in the Temple of Apollo is one of these mystical items possessed by the heroes, like the Spear of Leonidas possessed by my friend.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>An entry then appears which is not in the same hand. It is not in the main body, precisely, more in the margin and with little demonstrated respect for the text’s author.</strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Witness, you said! Do you see with your hands, old fool? My sister would never have forgiven me if you’d come to harm, although as far as I’m concerned the best fools are dead ones. Pft!</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>I travelled to Thuriai and then to the Temple. It is a grand place, lively. People come to beseech Apollo and make offerings for his blessings but the statue of Herakles is not without its visitors. I made my way as close as I dared, but the Arrow was held aloft in the mighty hero’s raised hand, and while of slightly larger than usual size and strange design (what manner of bow could have knocked such an arrow I cannot even begin to imagine), it did not seem to exude any manner of godly presence.</p><p>It is an unforgivable flaw in my character, but I was not satisfied and determined to get a closer look. I spent the afternoon speaking to the temple staff and gathering what stories were to be had regarding how the Arrow had come to be there, and what miracles it had performed. Again, a disappointing undertaking. Although the priestess was adamant the Arrow was indeed that of Herakles’, it had reportedly not done anything remarkable.</p><p>IV.</p><p>When evening fell, I lingered still, observing the visitors making their offerings and watching the evening rituals, until finally the last of the petitioners departed and the temple was deserted.</p><p>I should say it was the most terrifying thing I have done, to climb that effigy of the great hero to reach the Arrow held aloft in his hand. Up close, it was a thing of great marvel, made from a material I could not identify and carved with symbols that I would claim I had never seen before if not for my recent adventures with my friend. I was almost able to forget my terror at having achieved so precarious a perch looking at it, but suddenly that terror paled into poor comparison against the terror I experienced next as I reached out my hand to examine it.</p><p>V.</p><p>“What in Hades’ name are you doing?!” boomed a voice and I thought for a moment the great hero was speaking to me from the ages past! I almost startled right from my perch, but at the last moment clung on and looked up, there to find sat upon Herakles’ head a person I had not seen before but that I recognised immediately.</p><p>“Deimos,” I said, and might have stuttered. He scowled down at me and said, in a most childish way, “Alexios.”</p><p>“Alexios,” I corrected quickly. “What are you doing up here?”</p><p>“What are <em>you</em>?” he countered gruffly. “Trying to die slowly? Kassandra would skin me for a loincloth if you did something as foolish as that.”</p><p>I did not know what to address first – that Kassandra would ever do such a thing to her own brother that she searched so long for, or that that brother was here of all places – but as always my curiosity won out.<br/>
<br/>
“But,” I said, glancing back at the Arrow, “it is harmless. I see nothing poisonous about it.”<br/>
<br/>
He rolled his eyes and then hopped down from the great hero’s head to land light as a bird upon the arm, then jumped across to the hand upon which I had crawled and reached as I had been intending on doing. He did not hesitate as I had, and when he picked up the Arrow there was immediately a sickly green light in the air around it.<br/>
<br/>
I was astonished, and not a little chagrined, but still more fascinated than anything. “I see!” I exclaimed. “Is it responding to you as a son of the Gods?”<br/>
<br/>
He rolled his eyes and hefted the weapon easily, despite its size and likely weight.<br/>
<br/>
“No, it’ll do that for anyone who tries to touch it. And then it will kill them.”<br/>
<br/>
“Ah,” I said.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m fine,” he added, as if I had uttered concern, and then very casually, “But for me, it will also do this.”</p><p>VI.</p><p>It then seemed as if he flung the Arrow away from us. I could swear I saw it dart through the air, a blur of eerie green light. A collection of urns in the corner of the temple then exploded quite spectacularly and I looked in startlement back at Alexios only to see the Arrow still in his hand.</p><p>“Remarkable!“ I exclaimed. “But how-“</p><p>He shook his head. “Why do people always want to know how? I only know it does.”</p><p>“And what are you doing here?” I finally wondered aloud. “Are you here to take such a dangerous thing away from here?”</p><p>“Yes,” he said, and a sharp and somewhat unsettling smile stole across his face as he looked at me. “Both of them.”</p><p>VII.</p><p>I write now from my berth on yet another trireme. Deimos, who refuses to be called such, stands at its command. He is a frightening and compelling figure, as fierce and merciless as my friend is strong and honourable, as several encounters with pirates since we left the shores of Magna Graecia attest. His crew I think are not men to be trusted ordinarily, but they are either in love with him or deathly afraid of him, it is difficult to tell. He does not mix with them, seems to tolerate them only distantly, but their fire-</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>The handwriting appears again, briefly, this time between lines without much care for the other letters it obscures.</strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Haha! Oftentimes literally!</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>-when a pirate makes the fatal mistake of attacking us is almost, dare I say it, <em>cult-like</em> in its fervour. Yet he does not appear to need them. When the mood takes him, he boards enemy vessels alone and slaughters as many as it takes for them to lay down arms. He seems happier when they do not.</p><p>There is, however, something he does seem to need and it falls to me to provide it, much to my surprise. He is not a terribly good conversationalist, like his sister when she is in a temper. I found myself having to broach the question of what it was we were about and perhaps someone with more sense would have hesitated, but I did not fear for my life. Had he wanted it he would have killed me in Thuriai.</p><p>“You know things,” he said flatly in response to my query, and I reminded myself I was and had been since my youth a patient man.</p><p>“A great many things,” I said. “Yet it is not a reason to take me from my mission at Thuriai. Perikles will-“</p><p>“Perikles is dead,” he interrupted.</p><p>I was surprised, but not shocked. I was more saddened for the loss to Athens. “What dark and terrible news,” I murmured. “How?”</p><p>“I cut his throat,” he said, as if he was talking about nothing at all. “The Cult thought they could control him - and me. They could control nothing.” He paused to peer at my appalled face. “Aspasia was the Cult High Magus.”</p><p>This was a revelation more unbalancing than the murder of that great statesman. I suddenly felt the need to sit down, and so staggered to the nearest bench. My mind raced. A great many things made a great deal more sense. It is amazing, is it not, how a single piece of information may change an entire picture in less time than it takes to draw a breath?</p><p>“You said ‘was’,” I managed, and he shrugged.</p><p>“She’s dead too. Not <em>my</em> doing.”</p><p>“And the Cult?”</p><p>He shrugged again and moved to sit beside me.<sup>3</sup></p><p>“Gone,” he said plainly. “Oh, there are still lesser members here and there, yes, aspiring to a glory they will now never reach. Some may even attempt to rekindle the flame, but without the artefact they will not amount to much.”</p><p>I looked at him, the word hooking me like a fish. “The artefact…” I repeated. “The object that helped you see Kassandra’s memories!”</p><p>There was an odd look to him that I did not recognise until I realised it was discomfort.</p><p>“Yes, she told you. It spoke to me, this device, and once to Aspasia, although never again.”</p><p>“Are you an oracle then?” Among his many other frightening qualities, this seemed the least of them, but he shook his head.</p><p>“If it was some conduit to speak with the gods-” He said the word as if he were tasting something unpleasant, and in this he seemed to be of similar mind to his sister. “Then it never used words. It was more like looking through a …a window. When I touched it, I could see in whatever direction I cared to look – backwards, forwards, things that I could not have known and things that had yet to be, as if events are merely… records, like those stories you write.”</p><p>“They are not stories,” I said automatically, and then gave a start. “Wait, you have read them?”</p><p>“I went to your house first,” he said. “They were interesting.”</p><p>“Thank you,” I said a little dazedly. “But what is it you need me for? I still do not understand.”</p><p>“I told you,” he said. “You know things, things that are not in your records. And I need to learn them from you.”</p><p>
  <em>3. I cannot even begin to describe the strange discomfort I felt at this. He did not sit as other men sit, at a distance polite for conversation, but right against me so that his thigh rested against mine. I still to this day do not know whether this was an attempt to comfort me or whether he simply does not understand such things, or perhaps care.</em>
</p><p>VIII.</p><p>He drew me below deck to his rooms. I expected that he would live in a way as decadent and self-indulgent as his sister has often described him, but the room was surprisingly sparse but for a hammock, a table and a large open chest that seemed to be filled as much with scrolls as it was with armour and the like. On the table, to my astonishment and not a little discomfort, the Arrow of Herakles was helping keep the corner of a map down, which in itself seemed to be not so much a document of reference as it was a cloth across which a great many other papers had been strewn as if he had been reading madly and in no particular order.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>The same handwriting interrupts the margin of the page, </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>The page kept curling and I didn’t have anything else to hold it down with.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong>It is accompanied by another note which appears closer to the author’s hand.</strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Please stop scribbling in my work, Alexios! </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>“This,” he said, and despite the chaos managed to put his hand upon exactly that which he wanted to show me. When I took it and unravelled it, I looked upon it in amazement.</p><p>IX.</p><p>“I know this!” I exclaimed. “I have seen it.” It was a series of drawings, quite mathematical in their execution, and central to them was a shape I would not soon forget.<br/>
<br/>
“Under the temple in Delphi?” he asked, although he was looking at me steadily as if he already knew the answer.<br/>
<br/>
“Why, no,” I replied with some surprise. “In the lands of the Egyptians. They are the structures within which they buried their ancient kings.”<br/>
<br/>
“This also was the shape of the device we talked of,” he said.<br/>
<br/>
“The artefact originally came from Egypt?” I wondered, gazing at the drawings again.<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps,” he said, and perched himself upon the edge of the table. His eyes were downcast, his expression troubled. He appeared so like his sister in that moment that it gave me enough pause to abandon the drawing entire. “But it does not matter. When you came to Thuriai to see the Arrow for yourself, you suspected, didn’t you, that if my grandfather’s spear held some godly power it was possible other things did too?”<br/>
<br/>
“Why, yes,” I confessed, my full attention on him now.<br/>
<br/>
“You are not the only one,” he nodded gravely. “The Cult was after similar weapons. They once asked me to use the artefact to find them. I told them I saw nothing, but in fact I saw this.” He gestured to the drawing in my hand.<br/>
<br/>
“You lied?” I said. I wasn’t sure whether this was brave or foolish, given what I had learned of the Cult, but then again, Demios was a power unto himself almost in the same way his sister was.<br/>
<br/>
“Of course I did,” he huffed. “Because I wanted what I saw for myself. Or did. Now I only… wish to prevent others from finding it.”<br/>
<br/>
“But what is it?” I asked, staring at the drawing again, trying to discern his meaning from the angles and lines described. “What did you see?”<br/>
<br/>
“I saw a map,” he said simply, “to all the weapons everywhere, and there are many and they are dangerous. They <em>will be</em> dangerous in the hands of those who will follow in the Cult’s footsteps. But to see this map, you need a key. I want you to help me find it.”<br/>
<br/>
“A key,” I repeated. What an impossible task, to find a tiny key in a land the size of Egypt! “And then?”</p><p>“And then,” he said, and looked for a moment remarkably sad. “We will see.”</p><p>X.</p><p>I could get nothing more from him for the remainder of our journey. He brooded much, stood quietly upon the deck or lurked below it. I believe he was making the crew nervous, and we sailed east uneventfully and quietly for some days, until we sighted land.<br/>
<br/>
“Where are we heading?” I asked, coming to stand by him on the bridge and gazing in the same direction.<br/>
<br/>
“That is Kephalonia,” he said after a moment, pointing ahead of us. “Did you know my sister grew up there?”<br/>
<br/>
“I did,” I agreed. “It sounded like a hard life, but no harder than yours, I think.”<br/>
<br/>
He gave me a quick look at that bold addendum but I could not interpret it.<br/>
<br/>
“I think it sounded nice,” he said finally.<sup>4</sup><br/>
<br/>
“Is that our destination?” I asked but could not fathom why it would be.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” he said shortly, broken out of whatever brief reverie he had fallen into. “We will sail around it and land in Megaris, and from there ride into Boeotia.”<br/>
<br/>
“What is in Boeotia?” I wondered aloud, to which he sighed again and frowned and said no more.</p><p>
  <em>4. What kind of man is it who speaks so wistfully about the life of one who lived as an orphan on the streets, stealing<br/>
and fighting to survive and whose only parental figure was a thief and a liar? For all that Demios<br/>
has been the sword in the hand of the Cult, I admit I was heavy of heart to hear the longing in his voice then.</em>
</p><p>XI.</p><p>There were horses and supplies waiting for us in Pagai when we docked. We spent a night in a rented room of a tavern, myself lying there wondering what adventure could possibly await, Alexios sleeping soundly as if he had not a care in the world on the other side of the small room.<br/>
<br/>
We departed early the next morning – without our crew who had slunk off in the night to I know not where. It was three days riding north and east into Boeotia, during which my travelling companion was silent and watchful of the landscape around us, a fact for which I felt reassured. We very often did not follow the roads, and several times he changed our course, myself following, bemused, only to not long after realise we had somehow avoided one armed patrol or another or a group of bandits or a wolf den. I wondered how he came to know such things were there, and why he did not just deal with them as he seemed to deal with many other things.<br/>
<br/>
“Do you have an eagle also which helps you scout ahead?” I finally wondered aloud, after we’d skirted yet another soldiers’ camp.<br/>
<br/>
“That fucking bird of hers bites me,” he grunted. “I’d not have a menace like that.”<br/>
<br/>
It seemed pointless to question him further and I held my silence as we continued on. I was becoming quite weary and looked forward to seeing the lights of Thebes that evening as we neared the capital. He seemed not to tire, setting up our camp each evening, building a fire, disappearing into the darkness and returning with a hare or a pheasant to cook for our evening meal, then later rolling over and going to sleep as if he were lying on the bed of a king and not the hard ground.<br/>
<br/>
I however had seen enough winters to appreciate my comforts where and when I could find them, so it was with relief that as the day fell to full darkness, the lights of the city appeared upon our horizon not more than a couple of hours ride away. And it was with an equal amount of surprise that instead of turning towards them, we turned away and began climbing into the hills south of the lake.<br/>
<br/>
“Where in all the Gods are we going?” I wondered, and he threw me a look which was accompanied by a smirk I could easily see in the rising moonlight.<br/>
<br/>
“Cranky,” he observed. “Calm yourself. We’re almost there. And just in time too.”</p><p><em>Just in time for what, </em>I thought to ask when an inhuman shriek sounded from up upon the hill. My travelling companion gave a shout – one that sounded to me as if joyous – and kicked his mount into speed, shooting up the narrow path towards the hill’s summit without a word. I was forced to do my best to hurry after him, but I have never been much of a rider, preferring my own locomotion, the back of a cart or the steady, rocking gait of a camel. I think I only managed to find the small encampment in the dark by virtue of the light and noise coming from beyond it.<br/>
<br/>
XII.</p><p>I arrived to a wondrous sight, a temple of black stone the likes of which I had never seen but which I believe was related to the structure on the island of Andros. There were two bodies lying sprawled upon the smooth stones, one which looked in the dark to be nothing but skin and bones, and next to them not only my travelling companion but another familiar and in this moment welcome figure – my great friend Kassandra.</p><p>In her hand she held… I can only describe it as a jewel, but it was not that. It was like a child’s toy that shone with a moving light which was both beautiful and disturbing. I found myself staring at it as I fumbled to dismount from my horse, felt drawn to it in a way that seems now as if I must have been falling from a great height. I barely heard the words the two siblings were exchanging.</p><p>“-help?!” my friend was demanding in exasperation and perhaps some irritation. “Alexios, I have it under control! I don’t need your-“<br/>
<br/>
She then noticed me, staring at me in open mouthed surprise for a moment before turning back to her brother with renewed ire.<br/>
<br/>
“You brought <em>Herodotus</em>?! <em>Alexios</em>!”<br/>
<br/>
“Shut up,” my travelling companion snapped in return. “I <em>know</em> you have it under control! I’m not here about that.”<br/>
<br/>
‘That’ I imagined being whatever had transpired here and the strange object my friend held in her hand.<br/>
<br/>
“What a remarkable object,” I found myself saying. “Like nothing I have ever seen bef-“<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t touch it!” my friend cried out in alarm and it was only when she snatched the object out of my reach that I realised I had in fact been reaching out.<br/>
<br/>
“I- I apologise,” I said in some shock, drawing back.<br/>
<br/>
“No. No, I’m sorry, Herodotus.” She transferred the object to her other hand and then reached out to clasp my shoulder in a reassuring gesture.<sup>5 </sup><br/>
<br/>
“That is something that once belonged to those who were here before, then?” I asked and she nodded.<br/>
<br/>
“It is a key, one of the four I must find. The monster that guarded it…. Well, you see what is left of it.”</p><p>I looked down, and realised she meant the desiccated corpse nearby.</p><p>“Unprecendented!” I gasped. “And the other?”</p><p>“Oh.” She looked sad. “A researcher. He sent me to find his apprentice but it looks like he couldn’t wait for me to return.”</p><p>“These guardians are lethal then. And there are three others.”</p><p>“Yes,” she said, her mouth turning down. “And if they are anything like this was, I will have my hands full. Which doesn’t mean…” she added, turning back to her brother, “…that that’s any reason for either of you to be here, Alexios. I don’t even know how you found me.”</p><p>“I know things,” he announced, like a child. “I know where you are and where you will be. And I know you don’t need me, at least not here.”</p><p>
  <em>5. Surely it was my imagination that her touch was like a hot prickling under my skin! I will confess I was glad in that moment that I had not managed to grasp the object after all. I do not think it was for mortal hands like mine to touch.</em>
</p><p>It has always been one of my friend’s most gracious traits, that she can be a ruthless warrior and yet still care so much, for her brother’s words made her soften at once.<br/>
<br/>
“Alexios, of course I need you. I’ll always need you. If you want to come with me, that is fine, but dragging Herodotus out of Magna Graecia, surely you didn’t -“<br/>
<br/>
“You don’t need him, either,” he interrupted. “At least, not right now. <em>I</em> need him. To take me to Egypt.”<br/>
<br/>
“What? Why?”<br/>
<br/>
“There is something we need to do there.” He crossed his arms then and I did not believe he would be moved any time soon. “I’m not asking your permission, <em>sister</em>.”<sup> 6</sup><br/>
<br/>
“I see,” my friend said carefully. “Will you tell me why? Alexios?”<br/>
<br/>
I could see this was not a conversation that would happen while both siblings were still at odds.<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps we should take some respite?” I suggested carefully. “Travel down to Thebes, take some rooms, eat, drink. Then surely we may talk about this as adults might?”<br/>
<br/>
One sibling gave me a penetrating look for a moment. The other merely continued to look stubborn.<br/>
<br/>
“What an excellent idea, Herodotus,” my friend said finally, forcing a small smile. “How about it, little brother?”<br/>
<br/>
“Fine,” Alexios grunted, and then turned and stomped off back to his horse, leaving the two of us to watch after him.<br/>
<br/>
“I hope he didn’t hurt you,” my friend said finally, quietly, to which I shook my head.<br/>
<br/>
“Quite the opposite,” I assured. “I believe he saved my life.”<br/>
<br/>
She looked at me again. “Then you have your own story to tell,” she remarked and I smiled back.<br/>
<br/>
“Indeed. Shall we go before we lose him?”</p><p>
  <em>6. But surely, since we were there, he did indeed desire his sister’s permission. He could have just as easily spirited me directly to Egypt, but we instead came to Boeotia where he knew Kassandra to be. I believe even now that he wished to say farewell to her, in his own awkward way.</em>
</p><p>XIII.</p><p>Food and a little watered wine as well as a comfortable room in the city made both siblings a little more amenable to civil conversation and so the story unfolded, with far more detail than Alexios had so far described.<br/>
<br/>
“So, there is a giant map buried in a tomb, and you want to go find the key to it so you can make sure no one else does?” my friend repeated once the tale was out. “Why not just leave it, if no one else knows where it is?”<br/>
<br/>
The brother shook his head. “You didn’t even listen!” he declared, although not I think with as much hostility as he might have. “The map is not in the tomb, it's in a temple. And I don't know where the key is but that place is what I saw and so I will go there to find it. And when I do I will make it so that no one else can, so that they can't get to the map. In the temple. Or at least, not easily.”<br/>
<br/>
“The Egyptians I spoke to about it seemed to think it was cursed,” I added, helpfully. “Perhaps if we attempt to strengthen those rumours…”<br/>
<br/>
“Good idea, Herodotus,” Alexios said approvingly. “Maybe raid the city for records too, kill whoever knows about-”<br/>
<br/>
“No,” my friend interrupted. “Alexios, you cannot take Herodotus to a foreign country on a killing spree!”</p><p>"A few people is not a killing spree!”<br/>
<br/>
Something about the conversation suddenly occurred to me as quite comical and I laughed out loud, and then stopped upon realising I was being stared at.<br/>
<br/>
“Perhaps it is the wine,” I said apologetically. “I was merely thinking I have never thought to be courted in such a way.”<br/>
<br/>
“What?” Alexios all but blurted, but already my friend was laughing, having understood my joke.<br/>
<br/>
“Ah, Herodotus! You probably only have to worry if he starts leaving dead things on your doorstep!”<br/>
<br/>
She laughed more and I did my best not to join in for her brother did not seem to see the humour.<br/>
<br/>
“If you’re both just making fun of me…” he began with a definite note of uncertainty in his voice, but my friend was upon him before he could do more than make a move to stand and leave, throwing her arms about his neck and rough-housing him around with hugs and kisses upon his cheek that he struggled only half-heartedly to escape from.<sup>7</sup><br/>
<br/>
“No, brother, no! It was what I said. I made it sound as if you were taking Herodotus away and showing him a good time, you know?”<br/>
<br/>
“I am taking him away,” Alexios grumbled, but did not extricate himself from his sister’s hug. “I don’t know if it will be a good time, though.”<br/>
<br/>
My friend laughed again, but warmly. “Oh, brother. You are trying to help me, aren’t you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Of course I am,” he grumbled again, but I could see that he was warmed in turn by her affection.</p><p>
  <em>7 What a wonderous thing it was to witness this feeling between the two of them after such tragedy and enmity had kept them apart for so long and after my friend had fought so hard to reconcile them. What a terrible thought to imagine things could have turned out quite differently for my friend. I am so very glad that she has been happy.</em>
</p><p>Alexios did leave our rooms not very much longer after that. I do not know what he went to do and did not care to speculate. It was far more pleasant to sit in the company of my friend and continue to drink wine.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re on board for this, Herodotus?” my friend asked finally, quietly. “I know you have been to Egypt before but I suspect my brother didn’t really give you much of a choice either.”<br/>
<br/>
I smiled, for perhaps it did look that way, but I believe I was starting to get the measure of him.<br/>
<br/>
“He asked, in his way,” I said. “And besides, he is offering an interesting adventure. Hidden maps and god-like weapons and secret temples? Politics in Magna Graecia can do without me for a little while longer.”<br/>
<br/>
“As long as you are careful,” my friend sighed finally. “I have lost too many people already. I would not like to lose either of you, especially not in some far away country.”<br/>
<br/>
“None of us know where our end my lie, Kassandra,” I reminded her gently. “And I am getting old. But I promise I will be as careful as it is possible to be.” She nodded in understanding and acceptance both, and we turned our attention to inconsequential things for the rest of the evening.</p><p>XIV.</p><p>We left my friend the next morning and travelled many weeks across the sea and into the land of the Egyptians. My new travelling companion was by turns alarming and delightful. He looked upon the great port of Thonis-Herakleion with its many harbors and wharves, its and tower-houses and bridges and pontoons, and the great temple to Amun-Gereb overlooking all from the centre of the city, with a kind of childlike interest. I had the impression as I bartered for animals to take us to Giza that should I turn my back on him for too long I would find him wandered away and would have to chase after him.</p><p>But for all his interest in the port, when we met thieves and cutthroats on the desert roads, he dispatched them with frightening alacrity. At one point, we even encountered a small group of soldiers. We had encamped for the night and tethered and unsaddled our camels and were eating when they came upon us so quietly that not even my companion realised they were there until they appeared in the firelight. Luckily I recognised their leader immediately, in his robes and weapons and put my hand quickly upon my companion’s arm to prevent him from jumping to his feet with his weapons in hand.<br/>
<br/>
“Wait,” I found myself telling him, and the leader of the soldiers – I believe he was actually one of Egypt’s official Protectors – looked at first myself and then my companion.<br/>
<br/>
“A day towards Yamu,” he said in his language, which I thankfully had learned some of during my last travels here. “Dead thieves. You do this?”<br/>
<br/>
As my companion was still tense under my touch I said to him, “He wants to know if you killed the bandits in Yamu.”<br/>
<br/>
“Yes,” my companion said with a little suspicion. “That was me.”<br/>
<br/>
The Protector did not need me to repeat the confirmation, as it was clear enough.</p><p>“Very good,” he said shortly, nodding. “Thank you.”</p><p>I stared a moment, having not expected such a response.<br/>
<br/>
“He said ‘Thank you’,” I said, as the Protector sketched a polite bow as one would to another of equal standing, nodded once to me and then promptly stepped back out of the firelight like a spirit departing from the world. We sat for a moment longer staring into the darkness, unable to hear the men or tell in what direction they had gone, and then finally resumed our meal as if nothing at all had happened.</p><p>XV.</p><p>As we continued towards Giza, I learned that my companion’s capacity for violence, which was great, was matched by something else – his desire to learn everything I knew. He questioned me constantly and randomly - about the comings and goings of the great kings of the land, of the religious practices and legends of their gods and heroes. He laughed at some of my more outlandish tales, which I admit were not always as true as they could have been but I found I enjoyed hearing him laugh. As we drew closer to our destination, he asked more about what I knew of the great temples and structures and by the time we reached the monoliths of which we were speaking, I was looking forward to the moment when he would see them for himself.</p><p>And yet, he took one look at them and then turned instead towards the great Guardian beyond.<br/>
<br/>
“There,” he said. “We need to get into that temple.”</p><p>I looked at him. “That is not a temple, but another tomb.”</p><p>“It is a temple,” he said, and kicked his camel into motion towards it.</p><p>We spent another several days camped out at the base of the great Sphynx while my travelling companion sought a way in. I was writing again, resting beneath an awning we had erected against the hot sun, trying to recall all the rumoured locations of those weapons of the heroes of this land, when I heard a shout.<br/>
<br/>
My companion appeared not a moment later, sweaty and grinning and sun darkened already from his time travelling in this place.<br/>
<br/>
“Herodotus,” he said. “I found it. Want to come?”<br/>
<br/>
I had learned some of his nature as we had travelled together and I knew he was merely speaking in jest. I immediately packed my writings away and climbed to my feet.<br/>
<br/>
“Lead the way,” I said.</p><p>XVI.</p><p>I cannot describe the wonders we discovered in that place. There <em>was</em> a map, beams of lights glowing upon it, but my companion assured me this was not the map he had seen in his visions.</p><p>“This is only Egypt,” he said. “The map I saw was large and round and turned in the air and the Greek World was only a small place in comparison.”</p><p>There seemed no further path from this amazing place but after some short inspection my companion did something which made a door appear<sup>8</sup>.</p><p>The passageway through led to a vast room the likes of which I had never thought to see. It had the same look of the doors on Andros and I could feel excitement flutter in my chest at the realisation that I myself was finally witnessing one of these mysteries.<br/>
<br/>
“This must be a place built by those who came before!” I exclaimed, looking around me, now the one childlike in his wonder. My companion seemed not as impressed.</p><p>“It is a… library, I think,” he said.</p><p>“A library,” I repeated. “But… where are the scrolls?”</p><p>“You are looking right at them,” he indicated with some amusement and I realised he meant the great black plinths of stone.</p><p>“But how-“</p><p>I did not finish, for my companion had stepped up to one of the stones and put his hand upon it and writing suddenly appeared. It was not script I could read, and glowed, seeming to float in air, to move from one place to another. In that moment I would have given anything to have been able to understand it, and turned to my companion in the hopes that he could where I could not.</p><p>“Do you believe this is the writing of the lost ones?” I asked and he took a moment to answer.</p><p>“You cannot… hear that?” he asked and, “Hear what?” I said.</p><p>He frowned at me a moment and then returned his attention to the stone. When it seemed like he would do or say nothing further, I turned away, seeking some other secret of the place.</p><p>
  <em>8. I wonder, upon reading this, will the reader be able to believe these events actually happened? I would not believe, perhaps, if I had not witnessed it with my own eyes.</em><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>XVII.</p><p>It is a sad fact of the human condition that without stimulus, boredom soon conquers the soul. I could not make writing appear as my companion had, and there were no other secrets that could be seen. I inspected the chamber thoroughly while my companion moved from stone to stone not as if reading them but more as if he were… communing with them. The idea that he was perhaps speaking to the ones who built this place, or they were speaking to him, was somehow both exciting and frightening.</p><p>I sketched the shape and layout of the stones, describing some of the symbols of the text as my companion activated them. We seemed there for a very long time before he finally stood in the centre of the room, staring up as if he were waiting for something. I in turn stared at him, wondering what would happen next.</p><p>“You have to go back,” he said suddenly, and turned to me. “I was wrong. We cannot find the key. It is already in the hands of the Cult.”</p><p>I blinked in confusion. “But you said the Cult was gone,” I remarked.</p><p>“Gone from the Greek world,” he agreed. “But not from here. Here they have existed since the gods themselves – those who came before – put the weapons directly in their hands.”</p><p>“Why would they do that? Is the Cult not evil?”</p><p>He looked at me then and I suddenly recalled he had been one of their leaders and thought to perhaps apologise, assure him I did not think him truly evil any longer, but he shook his head.</p><p>“The Cult think as the ones who came before did, that humanity is chaos and must be controlled for its own good. But I think not all of them believed that way.”</p><p>“Fascinating,” I murmured. “The gods have been known to war with each other, I suppose. Perhaps this is the origin of those myths.”</p><p>“That may be,” he agreed. “But you are not meant to be here. You need to go back and find my sister. She will give you the Spear and you must keep it even if you take it to your grave.”</p><p>“You sound,” I said, “as if you will not come back with me.”</p><p>“No,” he agreed. “I will not.”</p><p>This was not something that I had expected. “I see,” I said. “What will you do instead?”</p><p>“I will hunt,” he said. “If I can track down the Cult here, I will try and take the key from them. Come. Let us go. There is nothing left to learn here.”</p><p>XVIII.</p><p>We could have found a skiff to take us back up the Nile, but we had become accustomed together to our mode of travel and neither of us suggested another way. The journey back to Thonis-Herakleion was quieter, and rather than questions this time he sought to have me teach him the language here for he was quite serious about his intention to stay.<br/>
<br/>
His capacity to learn was quite remarkable. By the time I was standing upon the dock, my ship back to Athens ready to away, I did not fear for his ability to manage in this foreign land. I did however fear for a number of other things. It seemed to me to be not right that he should remain alone here when his sister, who had fought so hard to reconcile with him, would welcome him home again.<br/>
<br/>
“You look worried, Herodotus,” he remarked with surprising gentleness.</p><p>“Why stay?” I asked impulsively. “Surely if you seek to do good, it can be done at your sister’s side as easily as here?”</p><p>He looked surprised at that statement for a moment. “Are you worried for me?” he asked. “No one’s ever been worried for me before. Worried <em>about </em>me yes, but not for me.”<br/>
<br/>
“Your sister will be worried for you,” I pointed out, perhaps a little petulantly. “What am I to tell her?”<br/>
<br/>
He looked at me, his expression sombre. “Tell her to go to Potidaia,” he told me.<br/>
<br/>
“What?!” I remarked.<br/>
<br/>
“She will receive a letter asking her to go to Makedonia, and she will not want to go. You should insist. It is important.”<br/>
<br/>
“All right,” I agreed hesitantly. “But I meant about you.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh,” he said with a grin. “Tell her I’m staying out of trouble.”<br/>
<br/>
“She will not believe me,” I warned him, and he laughed.<br/>
<br/>
“I know,” he said. “Then instead tell her I will see her again.”</p><p>XIX.</p><p>I believe he stood upon the dock watching me upon my ship until I could no longer distinguish his figure in the crowd, and I have since wondered many times what he felt and was thinking as he watched me sail away. I hope that he has found what he was seeking by asking me to bring him to Egypt and I wonder too what else that place revealed to him. It did not seem that the knowledge he acquired had lightened whatever burden he carried, a fact which I did not repeat once I reunited with my friend on the island of Thera.</p><p>She of course had had her own remarkable adventures – Atlantis, no less! And her father, Pythagoras! Which I will of course write about in her chronicles that I am yet to finish. And she did indeed receive a letter to go to Makedonia not very long after, and as her brother predicted, she did not want to go. I suspected that it was perhaps my health that made her hesitate. I developed a slight cough on my way back from Egypt which I have not been able to shake, but I have assured her I will visit our friend Hippocrates as soon as she is gone.</p><p>She sails on the morning tide and has come tonight to gift me with something – her Spear. She assures me it no longer holds the power it once had and that it is mine to keep, to remember her by. It lies beside me now on the table, and I realise it is holding down a curl of parchment the way I recall Alexios using the Arrow of Herakles for. Remarkable.</p><p>XX.</p><p>I do not know if I will see my friend again. Life is a series of many roads, which sometimes may cross if we are lucky. I will myself sail with Barnabas back to Thuriai I think, to continue my writings. I am not as young as I used to be and it will be a nice place to take rest and finish my books.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong>Handwriting appears at the bottom of the last page. It appears to be neither the author’s nor the occasional annotator of the document.</strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Ah my friend, I returned too late to say good-bye to you, although you know I was never very good at them. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Makedonia was…. hard. After it was all over, I only wished to see my friends to heal my heart a little, but I am sad to find you gone. And although I said you should not write about all that has happened, I am grateful to you for it now, for I think if you had obeyed me, you would not have written about your adventures with my brother either, and if he said to you at that time that we would see each other again, then I believe him. I shall go now to Egypt and find him, and be with him for as long as he has left, no matter how long that is.</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Thank you, my good friend. For everything. I will miss you, but I do not think you will be forgotten.</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So many things I feel I have to apologise for that I won't even list them. I definitely do not have as much history study under my belt, so I'm sorry if I butchered anything past tolerance. Trying to find a space to write a new adventure within the AC Od cannon turned out to be way more difficult than anticipated. Everything in the game looks legit on the surface but when you really start to examine the detail there's a lot of shuffling and reconciliation and hand waving that goes on. So (waves hands) I hope you enjoy the read, Recipient!</p><p>I did try to mimic the Histories in tone if not execution. Of course those didn’t contain dialog the way a story does so again the less you focus on accuracy here the more you’ll hopefully enjoy this little fic. I can't say it was easy writing it but I certainly had fun with the tone. Happy Yuletide!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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